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Arcadian (language)
Arcadian is a fictional language used in numerous works by and their subsidiary Osmosis Ltd.. Alphabet Punctuation Affixation with hyphons Arcadian is a strong isolating language in that it has no inflectional morphemes - that is to say, the words are not modified from themselves to suit grammatical needs. In English, for example, you attach "-ed" to the end of a verb to indicate that it occurred in the past tense; this does not occur at all in Arcadian, where all conjugation is based upon separate words that are not affixed to the verb itself. This means that Arcadian words are generally short, but there are more words in a sentence than there would be otherwise. When studying Arcadian, affixing is used for something different. Adjectives, adverbs, and other types of words being used as those forms can be affixed to other words with a hyphon. This punctuation mark is not used in any Earth languages (although it is derived, theoretically, from the Latin hyphen), and has the following derivatives in the language: Hyphons are placed between the word being modified and the modifier, such as between a noun and an adjective. The modifier is always placed after the word being modified. In cases, the modifier itself is being modified, in which case a secondary hyphon is being used; if the original word is being modified multiple times, it would use another standard hyphon instead. Take the following example: Where the tree is being described as both tall and one that has red apples; it is important that the secondary hyphon is used, or else the tree would be described as red, rather than the apples it fruits being red. In this example, a noun is being used as a descriptor for another noun, and an adjective is describing that noun, but any number of example could occur (a field could be described as having apple trees, for example, which would have three nouns describing one another hierarchically). Affixation can also sometimes be used where the prepositions of and from would be used in English, much like how a noun can be used as a modifier. This can be seen in the example at the top of the page. Verbs Basics of Conjugation Unlike other, more synthetic languages, verb conjugation in Arcadian is achieved almost entirely through using separable "prewords". These prewords are placed before the verb itself and modify its tense and other possible properties. Some conjugation requires multiple prewords to be used in order to fully describe the action. Like English, conjugation does not relate to the subject, and thus can be used in the same way regardless of who the subject is. Present The standard form of all verbs is the infinitive version, akin to the "to be" version of a verb in English. In order to use the verb in the present tense, it must be modified by placing the preword (ChOoV) before the verb. For example: Progressive The progressive tense is used to describe an action that occurs continuously, or imperfectly linguistically. In English and many other languages, it is formed as a present participle that modifies a base verb carrying the tense and subject. In Arcadian, however, it has its own conjugation. For example, while in English one would say "he is carrying", in Arcadian you would say the equivalent of "he ing carry", where carry is modified by the preword to become its own verb. This can be achieved by attaching the preword (KO) to the end of the preword of the verb. For example: Participle and Passive Voice Participles are the forms of the verb used as an adjective, such as "the food was broken" in English, where "break" is changed into an adjective. In Arcadian, it is formed by affixing the verb onto a noun or verb. For example: In both English and Arcadian it is used to form the passive voice, where the object comes before the subject, such as "the mouse was eaten by the cat"; this allows for more flexibility in sentence structure. For example: Note the use of the preposition (MEa), meaning "by" in English, which is most commonly used when forming the passive voice with an object and a subject switching valence (such as in the above example). Gerund In English, a verb can be turned into a noun by either forming a gerund (such as "running") or a verbal noun (such as "to run"). Both of these cases are infinitives and thus case no tense or subject, an aspect which carries over into Arcadian. Thus, in order to form such cases, the infinitive must simply be used without a preword. For example: Other Notes Forms of the Hyphon As stated previously, the delinear hyphon is rarely used because it is uncommon for word affixations to become so complicated (with at least four words being affixed at once) that they would necessitate the usage of one. This has led to oddities in the symbol itself; when rendered by computer, or in official printed manuscripts, it is always shown as the main bar with two smaller bars adjoining it. When drawn by hand, however, it can be shown as the standard hyphon with the smaller bar on the bottom, or as the version with all three bars. There are also further variations of the hyphon. These are so rare that they are usually only used when naming long scientific concepts, much like how the longest words in English are those of proteins. The actual appearance of these bars is very non-uniform; they can appear with more bars on either side, with the sides and amount of bars varying, or with the amount of bars being donated with an actual numerical value underneath the hyphon itself. They are often called fourth hyphon, fifth hyphon, and so on. Some other languages with the hyphon have different variations that are used to differentiate between adjectives, adverbs, etc.. These varieties are only used in dialects of Arcadian formed by syncretism with these languages, although some scholars have attempted to introduce them into the common grammar. Category:Languages Category:Studio Lillie